A- Appeals
Logos- Appeal to Logic "Steel is stronger than iron, so for a stronger frame we should use steel"
Pathos- Appeal to Emotion "Your donation of only 5$ a year can save the lives of 20 poor starving children"
Ethos- Appeal to Credibility "As a doctor, I am qualified to tell you that this course of treatment will likely generate the best results."
These are functions that you would use in your warrant and grounds. Any large argument will use multiple of these functions. To be effective stick to Logos as much as possible and use Ethos by explaining exactly why your reasoning is correct. Use logical arguments to show that a player is scum and only appeal to credibility by explaining the scum hunting technique you are using to logically point out that the player could be scum. If you try to argue about how good you are it just turns into a pissing contest.
B- Fallacy's
By learning to recognize these patterns you can find some slips and identify fake arguments. Almost every complex argument will have some level of fallacy in it; this is because at some point in almost every argument there is a logic jump. For that reason do not assume just because an argument contains a bit of fallacy that it is invalid. I will cover a few of the most common ones but to understand them at a greater level I strongly recommend watching
This Series. There is 3 times as many outlined in this series.
The value in understanding this as town is that it allows you to recognize players ‘painting’ a target a scummy as opposed to scum hunting. This counters scums ability to act as a power wolf and lead mislynches against the town, as well as provides a potential alignment tells.
The value in understanding this as scum is that it gives you an idea of methods to avoid in order to gain more town cred and avoid slips. It can also provide you with more ways to manipulate players who do not understand these methods.
Straw Man- Setting up a weak version of the opponents argument in order to discredit it
Red Herring- This is when someone draws the argument into a tangent proving that the tangent is correct and insinuating that it either proves their point or draws away from the original point.
False Dichotomy- This is when a player trys to force you into choosing between 1 of 2 choices. Usually with one of them being obviously ridiculous
Slippery Slope- Claiming that A will start a chain reaction leading to B then C then D and D has a dire consequence
Ad Hominem- This is when a player attacks a person in order to discredit their argument as opposed to addressing the argument
Hasty Generalization- This is basically stereotypes.
Fallacy of Accident- This is usually when someone trys to cover a specific situation by citing a general rule when the situation is an exception to the rule
Missing the point- The premises of the argument does not support the conclusion.
Post Hoc- Assuming because B came after A, A caused B
Weak Analogy-An analogy is not strong enough to support a conclusion
Begging the Question- This is basically circular reasoning
Appeal to Pitty- Forcing someone to feel sorry to accept a conclusion
Appeal to Ignorance- If it can not be proven it must be false; or If it can not be disproved it must be true
Appeal to Unqualified Authority- Adding Ethos to an argument from a bias or unqualified source.
C- Tone
Different tones have different implications. Learning to read and use these will increase your ability to understand and manipulate chat. You should keep in mind that this type of reading cannot be used without an understanding of the players posting style and their perspective. If you try to use these independent of that analysis you can easily screw yourself.
Confidence and Doubt:
When you see a player who expresses total certainty recognize that it could reflect hidden information. Absolute certainty is more often a tone expressed by scum unless it is supported by reasoning that backs up this level of certainty. Keep in mind that certainty reflects confidence but confidence does not reflect certainty. Its a grey line you have to analyze.
Team Scum show a gap between their level of confidence and the level of certainty that should be reflected by their reasoning. This is because team scum already know who the scum team is and have to fake their reads on players forcing them to guess at exactly how confident they should be about a read. You can often find this game is the largest when town reading a player because many scum players put less thought into town reading a slot than they would to scum reading a player.
When you see a player express doubt on what should be absolutely certain it can reflect deception. A good example of this is when scum claims a fake night action. A town player would know without doubt that they received the night action. Scum tend to express the read a little more softly leaving doubt in the situation.
When a team scum gets pressured with a night peek they often express doubt. Instead of questioning the players motivations they immediately move to get town to question the read by referencing framer or witch possibilities. This especially true in setups where there is little or no opposing scum at play because they pretty much know the slot scum reading them is town. Their response is focused from that perspective. Town may also do this if they town read the slot that is scum reading them but they are more likely to question the players alignment because they know they are town and the subconscious assumption is that a player pushing them may be scum.
As scum you can spread doubt to create a bias against future issues. For example, you could take time to discredit night actions which will give your team mates an advantage down the road when faced with a night action claim by seeding the thought in the minds of the players ahead of time. This can backfire if your reasoning is poor.
Aggressive / Passive Behavior:
Useful for identifying a players level of certainty and doubt. If you want to identify how certain a player is about an issue aggressively cast doubt and challenge the reasoning behind a belief. You can even not direct the comment at him and instead address the player base to see if he comes out to address the issue. Keep in mind that players natural level of aggression when using this.
Anger as a form of aggression is a common ‘go to’ response for players that deflect other emotions into anger as a defensive mechanism. Usually as a result to frustration or hitting a subject the player does not want to talk about when a reaction to a push.
Use aggression to focus attention on a specific issue or to distract from something. If some townie trys to crumb something and does a shit job of it you can blow up about some issue and it will draw focus away from it.
As scum you can use aggression to beguile reads. Its much more of an Ethos appeal than anything else and with that in mind you can effectively replace logic with emotion and push targets doubt. This is especially true if you are able to identify players who try hard to appear ‘skilled’ as that it will force them to choose between saving face and being honest.
You can often deflect aggression from players pushing on you if you respond with passive behavior.
Apathy:
This can be an indicator when it is in contrast with a player who is dedicated unless intentionally expressed. Mostly telling when associated with reads or the death of a player. Finding when a slot unintentionally expresses apathy can be very useful.
As scum you can use apathy to offset pushes. Simply responding to a push on you by expressing that you do not care how they read you dodges responding and leaves them with nothing to read.
As either alignment you can use apathy to discredit focus. If a player pushes a subject simply pushing that you do not care about the results of the push carries weight. I have sometimes used this to avoid pressure on a subject I didn’t want to talk about.